essays

Smashing Poetry to Pieces | Theopolis Institute, December 10, 2020

On Divine Irony | Theopolis Institute, January 2, 2020

Paying With Wearables | First Things, December 4, 2017

Life Has Never Been Normal | Shared Justice, June 1, 2016

Untrending | Curator, August 3, 2015

Ginsberg's "America" Revisited | Capital Commentary, August 23, 2013

Tweetable Rhetoric | Capital Commentary, July 12, 2013

Poet in the World | Missio, The Washington Institute, June 5, 2013

Signals, Smartphones, and Still Small Voices | Comment, January 25, 2013

Thoughts on the Newtown Massacre | Capital Commentary, December 21, 2012

A Cardinals Fan and His Family Experience Game 5 | St. Louis Magazine, October 15, 2012

Teju Cole Tweets America | HTML Giant, August 25, 2012

At Least I Author My Own Disaster | Curator, June 15, 2012

The Baddest Girl Around | Curator, April 6, 2012

On Satire | Comment, March 26, 2012

How Calvinists Spread Thanksgiving Cheer | Wall Street Journal, November 18, 2011

A Laureate in Letters: Philip Levine in correspondence, 1994-2011 | Books and Culture, Nov/Dec 2011

Childish Gambino: Donald Glover Does It All | Paste, November 15, 2011

Cassilly's City: Remembering the Gaudí of St. Louis | Books and Culture, October 4, 2011

Literary Twitter: @thesulk | Huffington Post, June 27, 2011

Literary Twitter: @DadBoner | Huffington Post, June 23, 2011

A Month of Tweeting | Books and Culture, April 19, 2011

Where Have All the Poems Gone? | ByFaith, Issue Number 19, February 2008

Uncannily Midwestern | St. Louis Magazine, August 2007

The Ten Jens Reading | Poetry Foundation, April 2007

Unexpected Lines (Scott Lowenbaum feature) | St. Louis Magazine, December 2006

Do We Care? Do We Dare? | St. Louis Magazine, September 2006

Time Well Spent | St. Louis Magazine, June 2006

The Five Aarons Reading | Poetry Foundation, February 2006

What is to be done...about schooling? | Comment, September 2005 - V. 24 I. 5

Not a Synod but a Salon | Christian History, Issue 81, Winter 2004

A Leopard Among the Bannas | Christian History, Issue 79, Summer 2003

The Rules Have Stayed the Same | Books and Culture, Jan/Feb 2000

Missing a Beat: Saying "Kaddish" for Allen Ginsberg | The Riverfront Times, April 1997

Spring 2000 teaching journal | Featured in Teachers and Writers Magazine


poetry

"The Nature of Love" (with audio) | Four Way Review, May 2017

"Gentler" | First Things, February 2015

"The Love-Hat Relationship" | Academy of American Poets

Interview | IndyWeek, March 5, 2014

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Capslock" | Mcsweeney's Internet Tendency, October 17, 2012

Three Poems | The Inquisitive Eater, September 17, 2012

"Naming Flowers" (with audio) | Everyday Genius, August 29, 2012

"Making Tea" | Books and Culture, September/October 2012

"Book Designer" | Books and Culture, July/August 2012

"Guest Interview: Indie Lit Award Nominated Poet Edward Nudelman Interviews Poet Aaron Belz," Part 1, Part 2 | Savvy Verse & Wit, April, 2012

"Boulders" | Zócalo Public Square, February 23, 2012

"Avatar" | The Atlantic, December 3, 2011

"An Invitation" | Books and Culture, December 2011

"Howard" | Zócalo Public Square, October 27, 2011

"My Chosen Vocation" | Shampoo 39, October 2011

Five Poems | Wave Composition, September 10, 2011

Interview | Pif Magazine, September 1, 2011

Interview | Poetic Asides with Robert Lee Brewer, February 8, 2011

"It's a Wonderful Life: Alternate Ending" | Yankee Pot Roast, December 2010

"On the Death of Leslie Nielsen" | Books and Culture, November 30, 2010

Four Poems | The Oxonian Review, November 1, 2010

AEM's 7th Annual Evening of Arts & Entertainment | Video of poetry reading in Santa Monica, October 15, 2010

"The Ultimate Love Poem" | The Equalizer 1.1, October 1, 2010

"In Irwindale" | Cavalier Literary Couture, August 23, 2010

"So Galactic" | Zócalo Public Square, July 21, 2010

"Thirty Illegal Moves in the Cloud-Shape Game" | The Washington Post, January 10, 2010

"New Movie" | Jacket 39, Early 2010

"Mesquite Bar Code Squigglies" | THERMOS, September 9, 2009

"Famous Palindrome" | Mcsweeney's Internet Tendency, July 18, 2005

reviews

A Woman of Property by Robyn Schiff | The Rumpus, May 12, 2017

The Hotel Oneira by August Kleinzahler | San Francisco Chronicle, October 4, 2013

The Library of Dreams: Howard Schwartz's poetry ends where it begins | St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 6, 2013

Reclaiming Wendell Berry, Agrarian Conservative: The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry | The City, Spring, 2012

Taika Waititi's Boy | Paste Magazine, March 6, 2012

Prize-winning poetry evokes St. Louis: New books by Kerri Webster and Jazzy Danziger | St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 3, 2012

Poet Bargen writes of postwar Europe in Endearing Ruins | St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 26, 2012

A Regimen of Aimless Strolling: Billy Collins' Horoscopes for the Dead | Comment, February 20, 2012

Quincy Troupe's Errançities | St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 12, 2012

No Uncertain Terms: Three poetry collections show us who we are. | Books and Culture Web Edition, January, 2012

A Poet's Evolution: Devin Johnston's Traveler | Comment, December 2, 2011

The Poetry Lesson: Andrei Codrescu teaches a class, reminisces, howls, and ruminates | Books and Culture Web Edition, October 2010

The Mind Is a Spa: Mlinko and Armantrout | Comment, August 27, 2010

The Jerk: A review of Robert Crawford's The Bard | Books and Culture, January/February 2010

Fractals: New poetry by Foust, O'Brien, and Zawacki | Comment, January 15, 2010

Regrets of a former "young William Faulkner": Charlie Smith's Word Comix | Comment, September 4, 2009

Poetry's next wave: American Hybrid: A Norton Anthology of New Poetry | Comment, July 10, 2009

Angry Notes: Devin Johnston's Sources | Comment, October 24, 2008

Six-Pack: The charms and annoyances of "collected poems." | Books and Culture, July/August 2008

Eliot's Rebellious Heirs: A review of Adam Kirsch's The Wounded Surgeon | Books and Culture, September/October 2007






Soft Launch (Persea, 2019)
Available in local bookstores or through Amazon.

"I would love to quote you a few lines from Aaron Belz's Soft Launch—how he rhymes 'Greenland' with 'what could have beenland,' for example, or rushes to the defense of Scott Fitzgerald—but that would give away the whole thing: the punchlines, the puns, the wry twists, the lemon twists, the twists of fate, and the fate of the known universe. It's all here, as a delicious set of inside jokes, like a Starbucks among the stars or a brat inside a bratwurst. The play within this play is what makes it playful. But also full. And delicious. Like a cup of tea that might scald you if you drink it too fast. Take little sips. Don't burn your lips. This poetry is hot, I'm warning you." —D.A. Powell

"Aaron Belz is the Comic of the Apocalypse. Were you expecting a Horseman? Get ready to be repeatedly disabused." —Rae Armantrout

"In the comic fourth book from Belz ... the poet acutely observes his fellow humans—especially millennials—and uses these observations to weave text-speak and startup jargon into rich moments that feel entirely human." Publishers Weekly

• • •

Glitter Bomb (Persea, 2014)
Available in local bookstores or through Amazon.

"These poems pull no punches: irreverent, devastating, even nasty at times, they capture the present moment in all its absurdity and hyperreality. 'Lampwise by altarlight' (pace Dylan Thomas), Aaron Belz keeps his eye on the object: often hilarious, he is also wise: here is a charming little poem called 'Team,' telling us, with its tongue firmly in its cheek, that we do need others: 'There's no I in team, / but there's one in bitterness / and one in failure.' Glitter Bomb is full of such pleasures." —Marjorie Perloff

"To say he isn't 'merely' a comic poet implies that there's something wrong with being a comic poet. I don't believe that, and Belz is one of the best comic poets we have." —Michael Robbins

"Belz undoes the notion that humor must come second to big ideas... These joke-poem hybrids challenge form by suggesting that the comedy is the poem, not just serving it. Even the more recognizably poetic pieces refuse to be taken too seriously." —Andrew Ridker, Boston Review

• • •

Lovely, Raspberry (Persea, 2010)
Available in local bookstores or through Amazon.

"Aaron Belz's poetry reminds us that poetry should be bright, friendly, surprising, and totally committed to everything but itself. Reading him is like dreaming of a summer vacation and then taking it." —John Ashbery

"Aaron Belz writes in the tradition of Richard Brautigan, never afraid to let the awkward intensity of address and visual snap of juxtapostion hijack the poem's more solemn duties. Reading Belz is like watching an intimate comic performance; it's stand-up poetry meant for you alone." —Chris Martin

  →Erika Jo Brown, Jacket2
  →Walter Bargen, Pleiades
  →Jason Labbe, Boston Review
  →Tony Trigilio, Gently Read Literature
  →John Wilson, Books & Culture (podcast)
  →Joe Harrington, Tarpaulin Sky
  →Jeff Charis-Carlson, IA City Press Citizen
  →Ellen Kaufman, Library Journal
  →Adam Palumbo, The Rumpus
  →Dan Coffey, ISU e-Library News
  →Doug Belcher, Jacket
  →Greg Gerke, Big Other
  →Micah Mattix, A Smartish Pace
  →Julie Dill, St. Louis Magazine

• • •

The Bird Hoverer (BlazeVOX, 2007). Available through SPD or Amazon.

"Aaron Belz is a gravely hilarious poet. The poems from The Bird Hoverer are part Discovery Channel, part History Channel, part E!—his ferocious intelligence, his love of glitz, and his wry take on relationships (both human and animal) are irresistible. Belz's voice is bold, wise, inimitable." —Denise Duhamel

  →Tony Trigilio, Boston Review
  →Aaron Lowinger, ARTVOICE
  →Katie Lewis, University News
  →Marc Kipniss, Jacket
  →Kristina Marie Darling, Rattle
  →Adam Fieled, Stoning the Devil
  →Alexander Dickow, Galatea Resurrects
  →D. B. Timothy, The Bagpipe
  →Adam Fieled
  →Vincent Howard

• • •

Plausible Worlds (Observable, 2005).

"Aaron Belz offers us a poetry of exhilaration and exuberance where the self is drowned in a flood of pop cultural referents fading as quickly as a television commercial or a movie trailer." —François Luong

  →Ron Silliman